This past year was a big one for me. Even though I started out in 2020, 2021 felt like a year where I was really putting down some roots, as far as news writing goes.
Nearly 300,000 people visited this website in 2021, resulting in over 400,000 pageviews. About 170,000 visits came from Facebook, 90,000 from Facebook, 50,000 from Google, and the rest from places like Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram and Patreon.
What brought all those people to my site? Well, the 268 news stories I wrote. Here are the top 10, ranked by order of views.
10. Alberta lost over 350 physician registrations so far in 2021
Even with new registrations, there was still a net decrease of over 250 registrations in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.
Views: 5,362
Published: 18 May 2021
9. UCP hiking personal income tax by $200M in 2021
That’s despite a promise by Jason Kenney in 2019 for no changes to the current personal income tax system. And the number increases to $286 million for 2022–23.
Views: 5,424
Published: 4 January 2021
8. Health minister’s campaign CFO appointed to provincial health board
Alberta Health Services announced that they has appointed someone new to their board of directors. After doing some sleuthing, I discovered that he had donated thousands of dollars to Tyler Shandro’s election campaign, and even served as the chief financial officer for the campaign.
Views: 6,079
Published: 12 August 2021
7. Alberta’s O&G sector generated -$212M in corporate tax revenue
At the end of September, the Government of Alberta published information on corporate tax revenue for 2020–2021, and there wasn’t much good news in there. Including the oil and gas sector generating negative tax dollars.
Views: 6,095
Published: 7 October 2021
6. UCP govt to cut postsecondary spending by $1.5 billion
I’d been browsing through Alberta’s 2021–2022 provincial budget, when I encountered the projected operating expenses for postsecondary education in the province. I broke down those expenses in this article (which postsecondary consultant Alex Asher didn’t take too kindly to).
Views: 6,549
Published: 7 October 2021
5. Professional curriculum developer grades the new Alberta K–6 curriculum
A professional curriculum developer recently submitted an independent review to a public school board with their assessment of the proposed Alberta K–6 curriculum. I summarized her review in this article.
Views: 8,369
Published: 24 May 2021
4. Debunked: Alberta workers aren’t collecting federal benefits instead of getting a job
If you’d been following Alberta economic news this past year, you’d probably heard business owners complaining about being unable to recruit workers because everyone would rather stay at home receiving federal pandemic benefits instead of get a job. So, I checked out the numbers to see how accurate this claim was.
Views: 10,002
Published: 4 November 2021
3. The oil and gas industry is scamming Alberta
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers recently projected $24B in capital investments for 2021. And Sonya Savage was super excited about it. As I was researching what CAPP and Savage were claiming, I found some very enlightening things about the fossil fuel sector in Alberta.
Views: 11,117
Published: 22 January 2021
2. Alberta electricity provider ends coal mining, shuts down 3 natural gas plants
Calgary-based TransAlta announced that it was shutting down 3 of its natural gas power plants and ending its coal mining operations. They plan to focus on renewable energy projects instead.
Views: 15,850
Published: 12 October 2021
1. Responding to Travis Toews’ statement about Alberta’s nurses
Over the summer, Travis Toews, Alberta’s finance minister, issued a statement regarding the province bargaining with the United Nurses of Alberta union. He left out some details that I thought I’d clarify.
Views: 22,938
Published: 7 July 2021
One reply on “The top 10 stories of 2021”
Stop Alberta Big Oil from looting the taxpayer.